During my elementary school days I wasn’t the greatest athlete but I wasn’t bad either. In fact I excelled at baseball even playing on a travelling team for two years. But once I got to high school I always ended up as the last puck in gym class. For starters I didn’t know anybody in my gym class. They were all kids from other schools. I also had put on a few pounds since I started grade 9.

I used to love playing sports but it wasn’t fun anymore. I was painfully shy and very self conscious about my body. All of the jocks would pick their friends to be on their teams. Sometimes I didn’t even get chosen. I would just end up on a team. Nobody even knew my name. They would point at me, sigh, and say, “I guess we’ll take him.”

Nobody ever passed me the ball. I could be wide open but instead they would pass the ball to one of their buddies. Whenever I ended up getting the ball I would embarrass myself by scoring on my own net or kicking the ball by accident. The most humiliating moment would come when we had a game of shirts and skins. That’s where one team gets to play with their shirts on while the others are bare-chested. I had to run around with my jiggly tummy in front of the boys AND girls’ classes. Ugh! 

Gym class was held during second period, right before lunch. I never felt comfortable in the locker room and I was not about to take my shirt off or shower. So I would go throughout the rest of the day stinky and sweaty as I tried to hide the smell with a ton of deodorant. My bad experience in gym class had spilled over into my other classes and by the first report cards came out I was barely passing my classes.

One morning somebody in class called me a ‘loser’ so I decided to skip the day. I had nowhere to go and would be in big trouble when I got home but I had to get out of there. Destination unknown, I exited the school and started to walk as fast as I could.

I kept wandering until I got lost in a forest on the outskirts of town. A strange mist began to fill the air as I was engulfed by thick fog. I started to cough uncontrollably. I struggled to maintain my composure as more and more filling my lungs. An unfamiliar voice kept calling out my name when from behind the fog emerged a……genie!

“Hello there Michael Lowe. I am Yamaza The Great. Today is your lucky day. I am prepared to grant you two wishes.”

“I always thought it was three wishes?” I asked the genie.

“Well, with inflation being what it is we’ve had to cut it down to two. You’ll also notice that there was no magic lamp. I had to fly here in coach!” Yazam grumbled.

Stunned and yet a little curious, I scrambled to think of a wish.

I had chosen for everything in my life to be easy. When I returned to school the following day I looked and felt completely different. Girls were smiling at me in the hallways and all the guys were giving me high fives. I exuded such confidence. The biggest change I noticed was in my ability to play sports. I don’t wanna brag but I was awesome! I became the star of the high school basketball team and was named class valedictorian when I graduated a couple years later.